The public broadcaster, MBC finds itself in an unfortunate position. Almost always. As such, it finds itself running as the propaganda tool for the ruling elite and the governing party. Forget the cheap assurances that you get all the time that MBC will be ‘freed’. That cannot just happen as long as the individuals mandated to manage the propaganda house put on party colors.
That must explain why the public broadcaster does not command a huge following as it were. Even yours truly selectively watches the station despite being an admirer of the DPP. That is why when I was tipped that the head of state was to feature in an exclusive interview I decided to watch the professor.
The open secret about interviews that involve the public broadcaster and the president or any high ranking official is that they are pre-arranged. The interviewee accesses all the questions and prepare answers well in advance. Which must be the case with this interview that had APM as the interviewee on the country’s 51st anniversary independence.
No wonder, the president sounded full of confidence and ‘knowledgeable’. He was almost bubbling! Except in selected instances where the host tried to ‘dig more’ with follow up questions there by taking his interviewee by surprise. This is where I was granted a chance to see the dark side of the president. Make no mistake, the executive arrogance that describes the DPP starts from the head. We may be taming another egoistic character that awaits a little passage of time to explode. I hope we are not.
It started with the host reminding the president that some opposition parties believe he does not have enough to show for a leader who has been in office for complete 12 months. APM shifts in his seat in a sign of irritability and dares his opponents not to just be saying ‘wewewewe’ (incomprehensible mutterings) instead of offering alternative solutions. An un-presidential way of facing a nation that if you watched, the host felt uneasy. Now, that is the language that made Bingu more enemies than friends during his second ill-fated term.
As if that was not damaging enough, the president responds to one Afrobatometer survey findings as nonsense. Because ‘he went’ to Thyolo and found that his homeboys love him so much that he cannot lose an election in Thyolo. Now, words like stupid, nonsense and ‘wewewewe’ may have little meaning in the United States where my good professor lived for a long time as he continuously reminded his audience in that interview, but like the ‘f’ word in the states, Malawians are not comfortable when they are mentioned by a leader in a public interview.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Maravi Post
